Published on 30 November 2001
Peri-Tethys Memoir 6 addresses the evolution of rift, wrench and passive margin basins located on the broad northern and southern platforms of the western Tethys belt and within the Alpine - Mediterranean orogenic system. Development and in part also inversion of these basins is variably related to processes controlling the break-up of Pangaea, the progressive opening the Tethyan system of oceanic basins and their closure during the Cimmerian and Alpine orogenic cycles, as well as to extensional tectonics that accompanied the Neogene suturing of Africa - Arabia and Eurasia. The tectono-stratigraphic record of these basins, which hitherto has not been fully taken into consideration, provides new and more accurate information on the interaction between the Eurasian and African - Arabian plates trough time. Opening chapters on «Dynamics of Rifting and Basin inversion» and the «Evolution of the Western Tethys Realm», presenting a time-table for rifting activity and the opening and closure of oceanic basins and revised plate kinematic reconstructions, are folIowed by 22 papers discussing the evolution of specific basins or regions. Areas addressed range from Iberia to the Black Sea and the Uralian foreland and from North Africa to the Gulf of Aden and Northern Arabia. AlI papers are based on a thorough analysis of data acquired by the Petroleum Industry, Scientific Research Programs and Geological Surveys. Much of the data presented in this author compendium have previously not been published or were not readily accessible to the general international reader. This memoir is one of the end products of the IGCP Project N° 369 «Comparative Evolution of Peri-Tethyan Rift Basins» that was initiated in 1994 on the suggestion of the Peri-Tethys Program.
This project was chaired by William Cavazza (Department of Geological Sciences, University of Basilicata), Alastair H. P. Robertson (Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Edinburgh) and Peter A. Ziegler (Geological-Palaeontological Institute, University of Basel) who also acted as scientific editors of the volume while Sylvie Crasquin-Soleau (CNRS, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris) took care of the technical editorial work.
ZIEGLER P. A., CAVAZZA W., ROBERTSON A. F. H. & CRASQUIN-SOLEAU S. (eds) 2001 — Peri-Tethys memoir 6: Peri-Tethyan Rift/Wrench Basins and Passive Margins. Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, Paris, 762 p. (Mémoires du Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle ; 186).